The way non-commercial radio typically works is: the station seeks Underwriting from businesses by going to the business owners with something they want to be a part of, through grant writing and through listeners becoming 'members' which is, according to the experts in NCE radio, hard to pull off with any success until about 2 years after you've come on the air.
For businesses to want to be a part, you need listeners. Will what is on the air make listeners stay on your station when they find you on the radio dial? You'll likely be better off recruiting a grant writer so your station is shopped against mission statements of the grant provider and can write a proposal that charms them in to saying yes. You pay them a commission for this. Expect few if any grants. There's tons of competition. But it might help early on. Just don't count on it forever.
If you are worried about volunteers with no 'skin' in the game and are worried about what will happen if volunteers don't, then just don't have volunteers. You can operate the station instead regardless of prior plans. Chances are very, very good you will have few volunteers anyway unless you are within a larger city and your 60 dbu hits perhaps 100,000 or more folks. Even then building awareness that you allow volunteers is difficult. The average LPFM has one or two doing a show.
If your skin in the game has been to become pregnant with a LPFM and then give birth, I trust you realize, like a new born baby, the work has just begun. Your baby, the LPFM, is a 24/7, never a day off job. It's the 3 am trip to the transmitter in a severe thunderstorm or blizzard to get yourself back up on the air. It's paying this or that bill because the money has not come in to the station. It's filling that shift because someone didn't do their job. In short, your work has just begun. And if you truly love radio, you wouldn't have it any other way. You will always have the most skin in the game.
In support for your idea of asking volunteers to have some 'skin' in the game, I know of a few stations that ask volunteers to become members of the station at the published level of membership they desire. One station tried $1 or $2 an hour per show but volunteers didn't always show up. The more successful plan was to offer an option where volunteers would attend a station event or help around the station a certain number of hours a year. It was never more than an hour a month and usually around 6 hours a year. In lieu of paying a membership, volunteers could contribute time (ie: volunteer 6 hours a year or be a member at $30 a year). You must have a volunteer manual to apply these rules, clearly defining what they can and cannot do as part of the station.
Chances are very good you will reach the 'trouble' volunteer that walks around saying it is their station and trying to get merchants to trade Underwriting for merchandise and services until the merchant calls you going ballistic. Then when you lower the boom, the former volunteer talking about what a jerk you are and how bad the station is. I have a buddy that doesn't have enough fingers on his hands to count all of those nor the hours spent trying to mend the fences. You need a way to qualify volunteers and a manual says you have your act together.
You need to ask yourself if filling your broadcast day without a volunteer in each time slot how what you do on the air serves the people in your 60 dbu and creates a product they choose over other radio stations. Too many LPFMs have an idea that corporate radio is bad and you have it right. They are so against corporate radio they ignore the knowledge every radio station uses to gain listeners and fund themselves. No matter the station, it is all about listeners and finding a way to gain operating income as a result of those listeners. Do you have a plan to do that?
